Models of Positive and Negative Politeness

Although the politeness mainly is considered in cross-cultural and interlanguage studies as a main point in indirect speech acts, but this theory is still developing. Therefore, it seems that there is necessity to a short description of the most influential models of politeness theory which was adopted as a framework theory in the current research. Leech’s Politeness Principle (1983) may be seen as a continuation of Grice’s Cooperative Principle in the way it provided a model of politeness within conversation. While in contrast to Grice, Leech attempted to explain, what the real means of indirect speech act in people’s interactions.

Since, he proposed that some independent variables “social distance, authority, costs and benefits of an act” which indirectly described the notion of context. Since, he proposed that some independent variables “social distance, authority, costs and benefits of an act” which indirectly describe the notion of context. Social distance refers to the social relationship between interactants that social relationship can be that of closeness (e.g. family members and close friends) or distance (e.g. unknown people). Authority contains factors such as speaker and hearer social position within age and gender. Costs and benefits of an act infer the effect of the act produced by the speaker on the hearer (as cited in Šubertová, 2013).

According to Lakoff who stated that make yourself clear and be polite are two main principles governing linguistic and non-linguistic interactions which first one is influenced of Grice’s cooperative principle and maxims, whereas the second one works by the three rules of politeness. i) formality (do not impose); ii) hesitancy (allow the addressee his options); iii) equality of camaraderie (act as though and addressee were equal/make him feel good). Lakoff is concerened that context influences the choice of maxims in the process of communication, in addition, she was more interested in crucial factors “status differences between interlocutors, degree of familiarity between speaker and hearer, and the culture in which the utterance is made” to produce polite or impolite utterances within contextual conditions (as cited in Schauer, 2009, p. 10).

In politeness theory that is adopted from Grice’s cooperative principle, Brown and Levinson (1987) attempted to clarify Austin’s (1962) classification of utterances, which related to the social functions of language within interaction bearing and speaker’s rationality in conversation. Brown and Levinson defined the notion of face with “the aspects of face as basic wants, which every member knows every other member desires, and which in general, it is in the interests of every member to partially satisfy” (1987, p. 62). As well as, face depends on whether the speaker choices to perform a face threatening act (FTA) or face saving act (FSA). An FTA is defined as “those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or the speaker” and a FSA involving attenuation in the possible threat that may use as positive or negative politeness strategies (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 65).

Positive politeness is defined as aimed “to save positive face by demonstrating closeness and solidarity, appealing to friendship, making other people feel good, and emphasizing that both speakers have a common goal” (Cutting, 2008, p. 48).

Contrarily, negative politeness is described as functionally minimizing the FTA’s imposition consequences on the addressee. That minimization in the imposition is achieved by showing distance between speaker and hearer, avoiding imposition or presuming, and giving the hearer’s options (Cutting, 2008). At the same vein, Brown and Levinson provided five categories within which the speaker can choose when performing a FTA. These five categories are those of social distance, relative power, and absolute ranking of impositions in the particular culture.

The consideration of these three factors will let speakers to do the act on-record or off-record. The selection of the off-record strategy by the speaker means that the communicative intention is not clearly communicated. This strategy is suitable for the speaker who wants to do an FTA, but by no means directly addressing to the hearer and thus, leaving the responsibility to the hearer to interpret the utterance as an FTA or not. This off-record strategy implies an indirect use of language and the flouting of Gricean maxims of efficient communication. That fact leads to conversational implicatures, which gives the hearer the chance to interpret or even misinterpret the indirectly uttered message; moreover, this interpretation is also context dependent.

Otherwise, if the speaker decides to do the FTA on record, there are two possibilities: doing it without redressive action, badly or with redressive action by using positive politeness strategies or negative politeness strategies. The FTA without redressive action means following Grice’s maxims, then conveying efficient communication by uttering direct messages. Brown and Levinson (1987) differentiated between the use of positive and negative politeness strategies to achieve redressive action. They suggested three main positive politeness strategies, which lead to fifteen different strategies to achieve an on-record FTA with redressive action (p. 102). Furthermore, they also provided five premises to achieve negative politeness: Be direct, do not presume/assume, do not fore to hearer, communicate speaker’s want to not impinge on hearer, and redress other wants of hearer’s derivative from negative face.